RE: [Marxism] It's the stupidity, stupid

["Craven, Jim" <JCraven@xxxxxxxxx>]

-----Original Message-----
From: marxism-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:marxism-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Gilles
d'Aymery
Sent: Wednesday, November 03, 2004 3:30 PM
To: marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [Marxism] It's the stupidity, stupid 


[Gary MacLennan wrote:]

>>The important thing to realise is that there are millions of very
stupid people out there, willing to rally to the banner of whatever 
moral panic the ruling class wishes to push.<<

Gary, respectfully, everybody is an idiot in the eyes of someone's else.

We are all idiots. This is meaningless. We are all susceptible to being 
manipulated, however. You, and I, and those "millions of 'very stupid' 
people out there." 

The important thing to realize is that we are all in the same boat 
together...

Sincerely,
Gilles d'Aymery
Swans Commentary


Response Jim C: We are all ingnorant (do not know about something or
even many things) but are not all stupid (do not want to learn about
something to remove our ignorance about that something). All stupid
people are ignorant but not all ignorant people are stupid. This is what
J.S. Mill meant when he noted [that] "Although not all conservatives are
stupid, mean and selfish, it is also true that most stupid, mean and
selfish people are conservative."

Indeed the vast majority of those among the Republicans--and many among
the democrats as well as among some radical leftists--fall into the
category of being not only ignorant but also stupid in the sense that
they take active measures to avoid any evidence,reasoning, facts, or
views counter to their own and prefer to recite old mantras and bumper
sticker slogans to complex issues. In the U.S. with its culture of
narcissism and relative affluence (relative to much of the rest of the
world) and with English as the dominant language all over the world,
what the hell? Why bother to learn other languages--other cultures
should learn English. Why bother to learn about other cultures? They are
"backward" because they are not like "us". Why bother to challenge basic
assumptions or purported facts--revealed wisdom and truth means that all
that is not "revealed" is not "fact" or "truth" or even worth
considering.

"We" are all in the same boat? The gay and the homophobe? The worker and
the manager? The battered woman and the abusive spouse? The Rich and the
poor? The militarists and the peace activists? 

As someone who has lived and taught outside the U.S. for over twenty
years, in very diverse cultures and languages, at various undergraduate
and graduate levels, I do believe that the U.S. students are generally
among the worst prepared in terms of basic knowledge about the world
outside the U.S. and even about the U.S. itself. But in an imperialist
culture, where riches can be easily stolen from abroad without having to
be especially productive or "competitive" in international markets, it
is very easy to achieve upward mobility even when--or especially if--one
is stupid--chooses to remain ignorant thus not threatening those even
more stupid and ignorant.

As my mother used to say: "Every ten years we have a census of the whole
population and every two to four years we get a basic census of the
ignorant, moronic and stupid."

Jim C

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